The Times of India
10 September 2007
Pilgrims as hooligans
by Ravinder Kaur
While Anjolie Ela Menon celebrated the kavadiyas in San Francisco through her painting appropriately titled Yatra, these very pilgrims held Indian cities to ransom.
The pilgrimage of the kavadiyas, followers of Shiva, originates primarily in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Delhi.
The pilgrims travel to Haridwar or Gaumukh and bring Ganga water to be offered at the Augharnath mandir in Meerut city, Pura Mahadev in Baghpat or at any Shiva mandir in the pilgrim's village or hometown. The pilgrimage comes to an end on Mahashivratri when the shivalingam is worshipped by pouring holy Ganga water over it. This water may also be used for other purification rituals.
What is worrisome is the transformed nature of the pilgrimage and of the pilgrims. What was earlier a phenomenon of true piety — bringing holy Ganga water down from the Himalayas to fulfil personal vows — has today turned into a mass, organi-sed pilgrimage with more unsavoury aspects than sacredness attached to it.
Even 10 years ago, a kavadiya was a lone pilgrim, followed perhaps by another one at a distance of several miles. He would usually be barefoot, carrying the kavad, a pole slung across the shoulders from which vessels containing the holy water were suspended. He would walk his way to the source of the water and walk back to his home, shunning transportation and pampering en route.
Modern-day kavadiyas travel in groups, are fed and feted by numerous people looking to earn religious merit on the cheap. If you can't do it yourself, at least feed someone who is making this supposedly arduous journey.
The new kavadiyas are full of sound and fury, ruling the roads for several days, blocking highways and traffic and disrupting the life of ordinary citizens. Garish stalls blocking sidewalks are set up on the roadsides for the night rest and revelry of the kavadiyas; they depart in the morning leaving behind large mounds of garbage.
These smart, new pilgrims, dressed in loud saffron gear and toting cellphones, are happy to travel in hired trucks, yelling and screaming like Hanuman's army.
Schools in Meerut were closed for six days, as the city was held to siege by movement of kavadiyas from Haridwar into the city. There was arson and looting in parts of north India.
The increased militancy of these kavadiyas is akin to that of the Ram bhakts who pulled the Babri masjid down and participated in Godhra-type carnages. Most kavadiyas are young men. Is it not surprising that increasingly large numbers of such men are able to take almost a month off from whatever productive activity they pursue? Most of them are likely to be unemployed rural and semi-urban youth.
The holiness of the task to be undertaken allows them to obtain the permission of parents and provides them with an opportunity to create a sense of self-worth. However, the lack of any real piety turns this exercise into a kind of militant flaunting of religious identity. The likelihood of its being exploited by Bajrang Dal type of communal armies aimed at other religious minorities cannot be discounted.
In towns of north India, the traditional patrons of mass religion, of Ramlilas and other religious functions, have been the trader class and more recently politicians. They are also the sponsors of large-scale feasting of kavadiyas. Most kavadiyas seem to be OBC or Dalit men. For many such youngsters, the path towards upward acceptance into mainstream upper caste Hinduism has been through association with one or the other of the central deities of classical Hinduism, Shiva and Hanuman.
The patron saint of akhadas and body builders is Hanuman; that of the trishul-wielders is often Shiva, the destroyer. There is great scope for exploiting such followers for religious vendettas apart from the nuisance they pose through violating civic space and facilities. We should rethink our patronage of kavadiyas before we face violence of an uncontrollable sort.
(The writer teaches at the department of humanities and social sciences, IIT, Delhi.)
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